<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Favored Child by rottenthot</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884186">Favored Child</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rottenthot/pseuds/rottenthot'>rottenthot</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene, incest mention but it doesn’t actually happen, off-screen pedophilia, ozai is an irredeemable piece of shit, show timeline</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:27:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>819</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884186</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rottenthot/pseuds/rottenthot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Azula knows about her father, but... what could she do?</p><p>Ozai has a penchant for young girls, and Azula has survivor’s guilt.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Favored Child</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Ozai never touched Zuko, and he never touched Azula. Azula knows this — she </span> <em> <span class="s2">has</span> </em> <span class="s1"> to know it, because if she doesn’t know it her whole world falls out from under her. If she doesn’t know </span> <em> <span class="s2">that</span> </em> <span class="s1">, then that means she doesn’t know </span> <em> <span class="s2">anything</span> </em> <span class="s1">. It could </span> <span class="s2">all</span> <span class="s1"> be fabricated.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">So, she knows it.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">She also knows full well about the girls — girls her own age, sometimes — that he sends for, some nights. But there’s nothing she can </span> <span class="s2">do</span> <span class="s1"> for those girls. She can’t undo what’s already done, and she can’t go against her father if she wants to maintain his favoritism.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">She wonders what that means to him — the favored child. She’s all but an </span> <span class="s2">only</span> <span class="s1"> child, actually, has been for nearly three years, but it’s been clear their whole lives. To Ozai, what is favored? Agni knows Azula’s more powerful, more skilled. But is she funnier? Prettier? More desirable?</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">To Azula, favorite means more likely to be hurt. Of course, it was </span> <em> <span class="s2">Zuko</span> </em> <span class="s1"> who was burned, but... every day, when he was here, both of them were hurt in little ways. Snapped at, commanded, displayed as symbols good or bad. Now it’s just her.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Zuko used to be a buffer for her. But she used to be a buffer for </span> <em> <span class="s2">him</span> </em> <span class="s1">, too, even if he never knew it. Azula was Ozai’s favorite, and he never touched her. It stands to reason that, had their father decided to choose between them, it would have been her. And, lucky for them, he never did.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">She </span> <em> <span class="s2">knows</span> </em> <span class="s1"> he never did.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">——</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“That friend of yours, Ty Lee,” he says one day, when the two of them are alone. Azula looks up at his throne from where she kneels beside it. “She’s very pretty.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Azula feels a familiar nausea clawing at her. It’s the active, angry one she feels when a girl enters his room, or when he puts his hand on her waist to move her like a mannequin — not the empty one that closes in on her like a migraine when she watches a girl slip from his chambers.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Quite pretty,” Azula agrees.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">Agreeing is all she knows how to do. Ozai has never touched her. But he’s raised her to be compliant, to want to please. It would only take him asking, she thinks in her darkest moments. It would only take </span> <em> <span class="s2">anyone</span> </em> <span class="s1"> asking.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Does she mention me, ever?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Azula grits her teeth so hard she feels like they might chip themselves into gravel. Slowly, she nods out a lie. “She admires you,” she tells her father calmly. “She says you are a great Fire Lord.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Ozai just nods. “Ah, she would make a wonderful Fire Lady. If she were older, perhaps. Or I younger.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">What a fucking joke.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“If you were younger, you wouldn’t know her,” Azula snips, before she can bite her wayward tongue. “I wouldn’t be your child.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">His posture shifts, and she stays perfectly still. A frightened pet, whale-eyeing her master. She can’t seem to move her lips with any speed, suddenly, but her prayers flow up from her to the high sun anyway, fast as any lightning she can cast.</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">And then he just. Chuckles. A short thing, like the final shudder of a sacrificed goatrooster, before its neck is wrung. “Oh, but if </span> <em> <span class="s2">you</span> </em> <span class="s1"> weren’t my </span> <em> <span class="s2">daughter</span> </em> <span class="s1">.”</span></p><p><span class="s1">She’s on her feet before she can stop herself. She’s storming out — she’s </span> <em> <span class="s2">running</span> </em> <span class="s1">. He’s kidding. He’s kidding, he’s kidding, he’s </span> <em> <span class="s2">kidding</span> </em> <span class="s1">. She runs all the way to her wing (bolts the door), all the way to her chamber (bolts the door), all the way to her bedroom (bolts the door).</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She has every intention not to sleep that night. But she sleeps.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When she wakes, it’s still dark, but the sky threatens morning anyway. She walks the empty halls of her wing as the sun slowly rises — nobody has dared enter it — and pretends she’s the last child alive. What would she eat? Where would she play?</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She likes the idea.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She’s sitting on a balcony railing, kicking the open air, when a door finally clicks open. She doesn’t turn to watch, just listens to the cheap leather of servant boots padding shakily toward her down the marble hall.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“F-forgive me, Your Highness,” says a boy’s voice. Older than her, but younger than a man. “Fire Lord Ozai has summoned you to his throne room, he said to... t-to let m-myself into your wing.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">A rustle of fabric — a bow. A quick retreat, just shy of a sprint.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">——</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Azula kneels in front of the throne, staring at the floor.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Your brother is a failure, and your uncle is a traitor,” he says. “When you can bring them to me, you may return,” he says.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She smiles up at him, and she agrees.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It’s the same fate once given to her brother, but without a scar to show. She’s always been the favorite, after all.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She knows that.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So this was a vent about my relationship with my own parent and sibling, and mostly I just needed to get it down. Hello from my new anon account!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>